The Miami-based umbrella group of nearly all newspapers in the Americas said Cuba is the country where freedom of the press ``is violated most systematically and completely.''
''Twenty-eight independent journalist are serving prison sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years in subhuman conditions, far from their families, with no medical attention and no respect for their other basic human rights,'' the IAPA concluded in a report.
Venezuela was also mentioned as a concern for harassment of Venezuelan journalist by sympathizers of President Hugo Chávez.
A ''special distinction'' of the IAPA's award went to the 28 Cuban journalists.
Receiving the award on their behalf, Humberto Castelló, executive editor of El Nuevo Herald of Miami, asked Jack Fuller, the Chicago Tribune publisher IAPA president, ``not to allow Venezuela to become a new Cuba with the press.''
The IAPA also said national security is being used as a pretext to clamp down on the media in the United States. [End]
He was speaking with reporters during a news conference at the Hilton Trinidad, prior to his departure for Caracas following an overnight visit in Port of Spain. Quoting the celebrated Cuban poet Jose Marti, Chavez said: "We will repay love with love." Saying that the protests which have forced his Government onto the defensive for more than a year now had been the work of terrorists, he said those actions almost strangled the country's economy. And the oil facility made available by Trinidad and Tobago enabled the Venezuelan economy to breathe again, he said.
……….The talks with Manning also focused on an idea from Chavez to construct a gas pipeline from Venezuela, through the Caribbean to Cuba and countries in Central America. "And who knows; it could go all the way to North America," he said.
He said also that Venezuela was indeed interested in an arrangement by which gas from reserves in his country could be processed in Trinidad for shipment and distribution in North America. And, he said, he was renewing discussions on a grand idea of forming one giant entity out of all the State-owned energy companies in Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru. He said Venezuela and Ecuador had already established a task force to explore this idea in some detail.
"This is not a far-fetched idea at all," he said."It is entirely feasible and it can be done but it is an idea that disturbs some people. "Ay-ay-ay!" he said, remarking on the possibilities for economic integration thrown up by this idea, adding that "it is time for us to return to the Bolivarian vision" for unity among Latin American and Caribbean countries. He said follow-up discussions on some of these matters were expected to take place sometime in October, in Caracas.***